Parents Be Warned – Beware the Clubhouse (A Throwback Thursday Jam)

(This is from a FB post from a couple years back. I feel even stronger about this today.)

PARENTS, BE INFORMED: The kids watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse tonight, and I really paid attention for the first time. I don’t like what I saw.

Mickey obviously runs the town. Not like a Mayor or a town manager. More like Jay-Z or Don Corleone. It’s his town. His symbol is literally all over the place: roads, cars, buildings, hedges. It’s all his. He sees all and controls all from his disappearing/reappearing clubhouse/mansion.

Yes, Mickey runs it all, even to the point of engineering his social life, compelling his “friends” to be unwilling participants in the madness. Mickey’s friends can’t seem to get enough of him, but never appear 100% comfortable. They always seem to be nervously awaiting his next grand gesture of benevolence or to find out what insane (and illegal?) adventure he’s going to force them to take part in, all while keeping a wary eye on the nearest exit.

It all makes Mickey’s overly-cheerful golly-gee falsetto downright disturbing. He’s created a life where his “friends” have 2 choices: go along with the program and enjoy the Mickey, or face the wrath of Steamboat Willie.

(Copyright Disney Corporation)

Take Goofy, the poor schlub with a heart of gold who has no earthly idea he’s only there for comic relief. In another time and place, he would be everyone’s best friend, a cheerful, well-meaning-if-hapless dude who doesn’t care what people think, who loves life and is the life of the party. But this isn’t another time and place. This is Mickey’s time, and Mickey’s place. And Goofy is stuck in crazytown.

And then there’s Donald and Daisy, the most unlikely of captive couples. There is simply no way Daisy, with her snobbish taste for the finer things could be happy with that gullible, hotheaded boob. But this is Mickey’s town. What Mickey want, Mickey get.

And what about sweet Minnie, Mickey’s lady love? She’s a precious soul, but based on what we now know of Mickey, there is only one explanation for their relationship: a mixture of fear and Stockholm syndrome. The poor girl is a terrified captive on planet Mickey, but at the same time is starting to like it, per the rat-king’s plans.

Let’s not forget Pluto, who interestingly enough happens to be a dog like Goofy, with at least a comparable IQ. But while Goofy has a seat at the head table, poor Pluto is nothing but a oft-neglected “pet”. Mickey’s cruelty knows no bounds.

And we won’t even go into the cast of auxiliary characters, like the mouse’s “eyes on the ground” Chip and Dale, his brainless frenemy Pete, or the deceptively affable Clarabelle. All the Mouse’s friends are only temporary anyway. Once he’s perfected his robotic sidekick Toodles, he’ll have no need for any of them.

This all begs one overarching question: what type of recreational drugs was Walt Disney into?